Home > Author > M. Amanuensis Sharkchild
1 " Every moment of my life was the same; it progressed in an endless rhythm of habit, habit which I could not exit or forsake. In simple terms, and for the sake of understanding, I was trapped. "
― M. Amanuensis Sharkchild , The Dark Verse, Vol. 1: From the Passages of Revenants
2 " Even though the situation was in no way under the control of this man, I felt like punching him and sending him from his chair—kicking him until he awoke. "
3 " I had always been no more than a hermit, straying from one shell—one shelter—to another, looking at life only as a constant battle for survival. I barely got by; I succeeded by no other means than sheer luck. I found food when I needed it and I found health when sickness became my leech. There was nothing I did or earned that sustained my lifeline; I was simply a manifestation of mass that consumed and expelled mass. I had no hopes and therefore I was never disappointed. I was a wayfarer through time and knowledge, a companion to their works as they to me were my only friends. "
4 " There were reasons that most dreams were left to the nothingness of unremembered timelines, but there were even greater reasons why those entities that inhabited them should not overstep their boundaries. I, "
5 " Like a knife slices flesh, these intricate streams of enlightenment carved through the palette of my mind, destroying while also reconstructing the known and the unknown. Each "
6 " Those who perished within the first floor were buried beneath books on the second floor; it was not enough to keep away the scent of decay, but it was enough to pay them reverence. "
7 " Once my body had been scattered amidst the intestines of canines and my focus had returned to my consciousness, stars slowly began to pierce through the veil that was the night; I found myself looking into the heavens behind those stars to catch a glimpse of the Haunter Behind Space. Unfortunately, all was still, and disgustingly normal; I saw no monstrous entity. "
8 " The Earth was now but a speck of dust floating in an unsearchable, impossible ocean of galaxies. "
9 " When I went to rest the piece of fabric upon the kitchen table, I found a stiff thread that had not previously been there stuck to my finger. I thought nothing of it even though the new thread had sprung from the fabric’s surface—not from the edges where the other threads were. In my ignorance of the fabric’s wicked attributes, I yanked it hard away from my hand, annoyed at what I thought to be some simple form of static electricity or random stickiness; I did not expect the resilient anchor of a tiny root. The thread came free, but so did a piece of my flesh. The fabric fell lightly upon the table with a small part of my skin atop the newly sprung thread’s end. My finger began to throb and bleed relentlessly. I had been given an untypical wound considering the miniscule carnage of the incident. It was different than a cut from a knife or a harsh abrasion; the thread seemed to have burrowed in and clung to a vein, causing me to rupture it when I tore the root free. All I could do was clean and dress the wound. My only hope was that some extremity of the thread had not found a dwelling within my finger. The thought of such a tragedy sickened me. "
10 " images of sacrifice and piety lined the walls. The ceiling extended high until its surfaces became like the mysteriousness of fog in night’s blackness. Small, "
11 " But it was not warm, it was cool and vacant and it probed me, searching for things not even the soul knows how to find. Wrongness "
12 " From that point on, I only remember falling through the light as the words muttered by the unholy Creatures infested my ears. Their syllables became a sadistic sludge of comprehension as my ears grew cruelly attuned to their speech. "
13 " Darkness is what should be expected when one is blind. I much prefer the darkness. "
14 " I dare not describe them, for even the words might beckon them to where sight meets imagination. The "
15 " For years I thought I had trod the right path. I thought I had sunk my roots into a foundation of lifelong nutrients and meaning, but really I had soaked myself and weighed myself down with poison and empty ambitions. I "
16 " I was midway through life when I realized my horrible mistake, and I quit my job—I quit being a pawn of illusory prestige. "
17 " I retreated to the haven of my apartment, rarely leaving other than for the purchase of food. In the loneliness, I found a meaningful and pivotal position within mankind by reading books of all kinds, learning of things I had never dreamed of, hoping to find that key I so fiendishly and feverishly hunted. I "
18 " They were lost in surreal capsules of dream. "